WISDOM FOR WARFARE! Friends God will train us for the battles in our life when we submit ourselves unto His training. Unfortunately some are content with their lives being lukewarm and therefore tolerate the devil working in their lives, but as soon as they become tired of suffering at his hand, as soon as they call out to God and ask for his mercy, as soon as they decide that they have had enough of the devil in their lives, and as soon as they are willing to make a decision for Jesus and to put away all sin, Jesus is faithful to forgive them, to rescue them, to train them and to lift them up out of the dirt and cleanse them. When we are ready to say, “This is enough!” “No more will I surrender to the enemy, no more will I walk in shame, and no more will my head hang low in defeat!” this is when their fervent cry unto God reaches to is highest peak, and this is when God steps in and rescues them and begins to train their hands for war and gives to their fingers skill for battle! So long as we tolerate sin, Jesus’ training fails to begin. Notice here how God trains our hands and our fingers, notice too that little is said about the heart, we can understand from this that this is war, and most times war and the heart of man do not agree. Why not our heart? Why is this not a priority for battle? Now to some it may be difficult to understand that we serve a God that recognizes that to be victorious in battle we must incorporate wisdom over compassion, and skill over force. We are called to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves, as we read, “Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Mathew 10:16 Friends, what part of this would say be compassionate to our enemy? As Christians, because we are taught to be compassionate, many times we are fooled by our enemy, they sometimes come as sheep in wolves clothing, deceiving us, and leaving us vulnerable. We become victims or prey through our hearts compassion for a hurting soul, so many times our enemy will pose as that hurting soul. 3 We must be careful even of our own heart. For this cause God trains our hands for battle. Now a little later we will see why training our hands makes sense, especially when we consider the armor of God and the sword of the spirit. We need to wake up to our adversaries schemes! It is during these times that our heart of compassion and mercy must give way to wisdom and skill. Skill for the battle, and wisdom for war! This is war when our enemy desires to sift our soul, as we read, “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.” Luke 22:31 friends this is war and nothing short of war, it is literally kill our sin, and that which provokes us to sin, i.e.,(principalities, powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places, Ephesians 6:12) or be killed by it! We need to wake up, toughen up, and utilize every instrument of God’s righteousness that we have available to us and can remove from its sheath! We need to engage in battle, refusing to settle for anything less than the victory that Jesus has already won for us! We are victorious in Jesus, Amen! Now we must live, and move, and have our being in this victory!EXCERPT FROM SKILL FOR THE BATTLE BY C.M.